Weekly outline
Why We're Here
Unlike Calvin, we voted on the following as the highest values in writing:
- the expression of meaningful ideas that are clearly connected
-clarity
-strong personal voice/point of view
As we help students improve their writing by helping them improve their sentences, let's remember that we do so not to appease the gods of correctness, but to help students achieve clarity, meaningful expression of their ideas, and a sense of personal voice.
Main Principles
We believe in modeling, sandwiching, and keeping our hands off student work.
English 130 -- Week 1
English 130: We begin our study of English grammar/syntax by looking at different types of verbs and ways in which they control sentences. The short video illustrates how much grammar native speakers know without knowing they know it. Please read pages 1-19 in Doing Grammar, 4th edition or pages 1-22 in the 3rd edition. Referring to the handout on verb types and sentence patterns, follow the instructions on the bottom of the page. The completed responses are due as exercise #1 on turnitin.com. Please complete the quiz below by the due date.
English 130 -- Week 2
Parts of Speech: The readings and the cheat sheet this week offer different approaches to your task of identifying parts of speech; use whatever works best for you to do the homework. The assignment sheet gives you the pages to read and review, as well as the assignments to submit to turnitin.English 130 -- Week 3
This week, we focus on verb forms, primarily tense, aspect, and mood. Please see the assignment sheet below.
English 130 -- Week 4
Transformational grammar can be fun; we focus this week on question formation, the passive voice, and expletives (no profanity, please).
English 130 -- Week 5
This week we focus on relative clauses and appositives -- two ways to use phrases and clauses to modify nouns (did you spot the appositive in this sentence?). Please read 141-161 in Doing Grammar (3rd ed.) or 120-137 in the 4th edition. Then read the attachment below on "Adjective Clauses (Relative Clauses) and Appositives," and for homework, submit all of the exercises (two adjective clause exercises and two appositive exercises) from the attachment. There is no homework from the text this week.
English 130 -- Week 6
This week we focus on using verbal phrases and absolutes.
English 130 -- Week 7
This week we focus on different phrases and clauses that can act as nouns and adverbs. Please read pages 193-219 in Doing Grammar (3rd edition) or 164-183 in the 4th edition. Then do exercise 1 on page 220 of the 3rd edition or 185-6 of the 4th (#1-5 and #1-5 in either edition); also, please write 2 sentences containing that-clauses, 2 containing wh-clauses, 2 containing infinitive phrases acting as noun substitutes, and 2 containing gerund phrases (-ing phrases acting as noun substitutes). Submit the exercises on turnitin, of course. There will be a review session on Friday, at which you can ask questions about anything we've done so far.
English 130 -- Week 8
This week we focus on ways to add modifiers.
English 130 -- Week 9
This week, we focus on ways to join or separate sentences. The reading and exercise for this week are in the attachment below. You may also begin essay #1, following the guidelines in the assignment below.
English 130 -- Week 10
Please submit your responses to #1, 2, and 3 below on focus as exercise #10.
English 130 -- Week 11
Review Opportunity #1: I've attached the four-page sentence entitled "The Length of the Sentence", in addition to my parsed version of it. Please browse the way that I parsed it, and let me know if you have any questions.
English 130 -- Week 12
This week we go over the most common sentence problems in academic writing, focusing on three broad categories -- sentence boundaries, focus, and consistency. Please submit the completed assignment as exercise #11.
English 130 -- Week 13
This week we continue our review.
English 130 -- Week 14
The final will be available for you to take this week.
